


Star Anise

by ladymal



Series: Truths [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 12:29:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5967451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymal/pseuds/ladymal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solas knows what she is. A spy with no allegiance. A liar. A manipulator. He can never be certain but still, he finds himself helpless before her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Star Anise

In a way, it was unsurprising how she became…irresistible. She would visit him in the rotunda and everything else would lose its significance in an instant. The spell he had been casting would turn to a haze of unfocused power as he allowed his attention to drift and the Fade to slip back beyond the Veil. He would set down his brush and pigment as she spoke, knowing that the fresco on the wall would dry and he would spend painstaking hours scraping away ruined plaster before beginning again.

In idle moments, Solas’ thoughts would wander to her. To the sharpness of her tongue and to her smile—warm with delight—when it managed to startle a laugh from his lips. Or how the sun would become entangled in her eyes, turning them to sparkling jade, and she’d wink to find him looking. He would want for her company then and he would marvel at how easily he had been influenced.

It was the nature of a spy to be disarming. Charismatic. Seduction in a dozen forms when necessary. From the onset, he had watched Anise manipulate their companions as effortlessly as if they were damp clay in a potter’s hands. She traded teasing barbs with Dorian, swapped stories with Varric, and made off-color jokes with Blackwall. Sera, she pranked. Vivienne, she flattered. Cassandra, she discussed the philosophies of Thedas. They loved her for it though they did not quite understand why.

Still, the knowing did not change the effect of her charm on him even as it left him perpetually in doubt. Whenever her face would lighten at the sight of him. When she listened as he spoke with an intensity that said, _Your words, your thoughts, they are important. You are important._ He would wonder, always, what was the truth of her and what were lies. It is all lies, he thought, unraveling before things that he desperately wanted to be true.

It was this unraveling that caused him to notice when she put distance between them. Not in any obvious way—she sought him out just as much and smiled at him just as much but the casual, innocent touches from her that he had grown to welcome ceased. He felt strangely bereft without them despite knowing that closeness was dangerous. Foolish. However, he had realized that he’d become extremely foolish and so when he caught a quickly aborted motion to place her hand on his shoulder, he made no effort to stop his question.

“Have I contracted a disease, Inquisitor?”

Anise raised her eyebrows and if he hadn’t known her secret, he would have believed her show of bemused surprise. “You would know better than me, I think. If you’re not feeling well, you should talk to one of the healers.”

He raised his eyebrows back making her lips twitch and her eyes dart away.

“That look of yours doesn’t work on me and you know it,” she said. She looked back at him and there was a breath of hesitation, a flash of something uncovered in her expression. It passed so quickly that it might never have been there at all. “You were talking about these shards the Venatori are looking for.”

He hummed but allowed her to dodge the question for now. If there was one truth he was certain of, it was that if she didn’t wish to answer then she would not. As he continued telling her what he knew of the shards, his thoughts lingered on what she might have almost said and he wondered.

 

* * *

 

That evening, he walked into the rotunda to find a book he’d lent to Dorian waiting for him on his desk. He frowned at it slightly. Generally, Dorian returned most things by tossing them over the railing and then laughing at Solas’ annoyance. That the book had been placed neatly in front of his chair was irregular and somewhat questionable. Suspecting that Sera might have come to visit, he approached it warily. There wasn’t any tampering that he could see, however, and when he flicked opened the cover, it wasn’t to find a crude drawing or a dusting of rashvine powder in-between the pages but a scrap of paper.

It was not an academic note or an improvised bookmark like he first assumed and later, he would not be surprised at the way his whole being seemed to catch in a moment in time as he read.

_You asked why._

_I care about you._

There was no signature but instead a drawing at the bottom corner of the note that he first mistook for a crude attempt at a flower or a star but was actually neither. _Star anise._ The torn edges of the paper were soft and frayed from tearing when he picked it up and he ran his thumb against one side. _Such few words it took_ , he thought as he stared at the lines of the flowing, unfamiliar script and wondered.


End file.
